Pharmaceutical industrial wastewater exhibiting the co-occurrence of biofilm-forming genes in the multidrug-resistant bacterial community poses a novel environmental threat.

The interaction of the environment with the effluent of wastewater treatment plants, having antibiotics, multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria, and biofilm-forming genes (BFGs), has vast environmental risks. Antibiotic pollution bottlenecks environmental bacteria and has the potential to significantly lower the biodiversity of environmental bacteria, causing an alteration in ecological equilibrium. It can induce selective pressure for antibiotic resistance (AR) and can transform the non-resistant environmental bacteria into a resistant form through HGT.

Coexistence of multidrug resistance and ESBL encoding genes - bla, bla, and bla; its amplification and dispersion in the environment via municipal wastewater treatment plant.

Municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWWTPs) are a global source of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), collecting wastewater from a variety of sources, including hospital wastewater, domestic wastewater, runoff from agricultural and livestock farms, etc. These sources are contaminated with organic and inorganic pollutants, ARGs and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB). Such pollutants aided eutrophication and encouraged bacterial growth.

Municipal wastewater treatment plant showing a potential reservoir for clinically relevant MDR bacterial strains co-occurrence of ESBL genes and integron-integrase genes.

Municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWWTPs) are a milieu for co-occurrence of multiple antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). This facilitates mixing and genetic exchange; and promotes dissemination of multidrug resistance (MDR) to wastewater bacterial communities which is hazardous for the effluent receiving environment. This study investigated the co-occurrence of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) genes (bla, bla, bla, bla), and integron-integrase genes (intI1, intI2, intI3) in MDR bacteria isolated from the Bharwara MWWTP in Lucknow, India.